Washington: A new research has suggested that the quality of interactions among married couples is affected by wives' inability to fall asleep at night, but not by husbands' sleep problems.

Results show that, among wives, taking longer to fall asleep at night predicted their reports of more negative and less positive marital interactions the next day, and it also predicted their husband's reports of less positive marital interaction ratings the following day. In contrast, husbands' sleep did not affect their own or their wife''s report of next day's marital interactions.

"We found that wives' sleep problems affect her own and her spouse's marital functioning the next day, and these effects were independent of depressive symptoms," said principal investigator Wendy M. Troxel, assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in Pittsburgh, Pa.

"Specifically, wives who took longer to fall asleep the night before reported poorer marital functioning the next day, and so did their husbands," added Troxel.

According to the authors, the findings show that sleep disorders such as insomnia can have a negative impact on marital relationships.

"These results highlight the importance of considering the interpersonal consequences of sleep and sleep loss," said Troxel.

The research was presented in Minneapolis, Minn., at SLEEP 2011, the 25th Anniversary Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies LLC (APSS).